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Intersolar Europe

Mexican company Inventive Power helps industrial customers to reduce their energy costs, which in turn reduces pollution in major cities. “Besides traffic, industrial boilers are responsible for much of the pollution in urban areas,” Ángel Mejía Santiago explained during the Intersolar Europe. The founder and CEO of Inventive Power emphasised that concentrating solar systems could offer energy at significantly lower cost than thermal power generation by natural gas or oil. Santiago sees great market potential in the technology, as there have been 32,000 boilers and water heaters installed across the country – at hotels and hospitals as well as food and beverage companies. The photo shows a parabolic trough installation with 433 m² of mirror aperture at the Nestlé dairy factory in Lagos de Moreno, central Mexico, which started operating in 2014.

Solar heating and cooling is not really the most transparent sector regarding market and industry figures. There is no global solar heat industry council and companies around the globe are using quite different technologies and supply chains – which is exactly why all entities and brand associations have so far hesitated to publish a worldwide turnover for the solar thermal industry. This news piece by German agency solrico will make the first attempt at assessing the sector’s global turnover, which it estimates at EUR 17.996 billion. The following text will list all of the assumptions and estimations done to get to that number, so that any stakeholder or organisation with additional or different information may contact us to improve the assessment (epp@solrico.com). The chart on the left shows the distribution of newly installed, glazed collector area in 2013, and the chart on the right depicts the regional share in 2013 turnover.

Europe’s conference season now starts new after the end of 2014: This week, the World Sustainable Energy Days began in Wels, Austria, with a special focus on Nearly Zero Energy Buildings. Solarthermalworld.org is offering information about all important events on the Calender of Events and will highlight some upcoming conferences in this news piece. The variety of solar heating and cooling topics is great, but the technology remains on the sidelines during most conferences. The Calender of Events lists 70 renewable conferences and fairs until November 2016.

Solar heat for Industrial Processes (SHIP) has a large potential and is an important, upcoming market for solar thermal – this was the conclusion which Christoph Lauterbach, Research Associate at the German University of Kassel, drew in his presentation at the Intersolar Europe 2012 in Munich. In the case of Germany, Lauterbach identified a potential of 16 TWh/a. This is 3.4% of the country’s total energy consumption and corresponds to 36 million m² of collector area. According to Lauterbach, the overall potential for the 25 EU members amounts to 70 TWh/a – approximately four times as much.
Photo: www.solar-process-heat.eu

With half a year delay, the German solar industry association Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft (BSW Solar) officially presented its Roadmap for Solar Heat at the Intersolar Europe in June 2012. The roadmap describes scenarios to develop solar thermal in Germany and shows the policies needed to implement them. While the roadmap’s outlook is being criticised for sounding too optimistic, one of the authors, Matthias Reitzenstein, emphasises that the paper is not meant to be a prediction of what will happen but rather a guide about what needs to be done.
Chart: Roadmap of Solar Heat, BSW Solar

On 13 June, it was time for the fifth Intersolar Award at the Intersolar Europe in Munich. The solar industry’s international prize pays tribute to companies, products and services in the categories of Photovoltaics, Solar Thermal Technologies and PV Production Technologies. It was awarded to nine companies – three from each category. Lucky winners in the Solar Thermal Technologies category are Shimon and Zvika Klier from Tigi Ltd, Israel, Pierro Abbate and Vittorio Palmieri from TVP Solar, Switzerland, and Francesco and Vittorio Orioli from Soltigua – Laterizi Gambettola SRL, Italy (from left to right). Photo: Stephanie Banse

Solar thermal professionals from all around the world took part in the third round of the solarthermalworld.org quiz at the Intersolar Europe in Munich. The three winners, who were announced at the third day of the fair, came from three different countries as well. Daniel Mugnier (center), researcher at French company Tecsol SA, and German Uwe Trenkner (right), from Trenkner Consulting in Brussels, scored best in the 10-question quiz. The best quiz participant from outside Europe was Chris Beebe (left), CEO of Beam Engineering, a company located in Boston, Massachusetts.

German collector manufacturers have come under high pressure: Copper prices are still on the rise, but the German market is not picking up. Replacing the copper material in the absorber and using a plastic tray instead of an aluminium frame are two of the cost-saving measures the producers have implemented to get sales margins under control. Two German collector manufacturers - STI Solar- Technologie- International and Bosch Thermotechnik - presented collectors with ultrasonic-welded aluminium absorbers and polymer trays on the fairs during the first half of 2011. The photo shows the STI collector, which has an ultrasonic-welded aluminium plate and an aluminium pipe absorber, at the ISH in March. Photo: Bärbel Epp

Munich's Intersolar in June was the first-ever German event at which Finnish company T-Drill O presented its machinery. With a focus on pipe processing for solar thermal absorbers, the company offers T-Drill machines, as well as pipe cutting, pipe end closing and end forming machines. The photo shows Timo Lehtonen, Sales Director at T-Drill, presenting the main component of a T-Drill machine: the tool that can drill and collar during a single production step. Photo: Bärbel Epp